London, Sept. 9.
President Kallio of Finland died lest night, according to the Swiss radio.
Finland's essentially democratic in-stiners were well illustrated in the man who was her President at the time of Russia's invasion in 1939, Mr. Kallio, for he was born of peasant stock in (1873), and after leaving school began work on his father's farm in Nivala parish, in northern Finland.
He prospered and became respected in the district and went in for local politics. In 1804 he was elected to the Finnish parliament as a representative of the peasants, who under the Russian Regime shared representation in the chamber with members representing the Church, ihe nobles, and bourgeois interests.
He was elected Speaker of the Chamber in 1920, Mr. Kallio was Prime Minister of two cabinets and was a member of the senate when that body, in 1917 proclaimed the independence of Finland, When the war of independence was brought to a successful end, he was Minister of Agriculture.
Mi Kallio was a director of the Bank of Finland before assuming the presidency and was also president of Various farmers' organisations, including cooperatives, He always took a great interest in the youth of the nation, particularly the peasant youth organisations which provided education in art and the drama for young people in rural districts. Throughout his career the President remained in close touch with the peasantry and he became the embodiment of the peasant tradi. tion in the national life. He ma the daughter of a neighbouring farmer,—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.